Dear FORMER President Clinton:

        It has been reported that you would like to help Cincinnati resolve its racial conflict. If you are telling the truth, here's how you can help us in a big way:

        Stay the heck away.

        Don't come. Don't even talk about coming.

        Work on your fictional memoirs. Nag the networks for a job like Oprah's. Visit your wife (her name is Hillary, in case you forgot). Give another self-serving, delusional interview to the lap dogs at Newsweek. Go chase your post-presidential legacy of the week, whatever her name is.

        But just stay away. We have enough problems without being disgraced as the town so desperate it begged Bill Clinton for help.

Jerry's neighborhood

        If you ignore this advice, I will understand. After all, I'm not your biggest fan. I'm among the extremist ""Clintonhaters” who voted for Bob Dole. If you ran against Michael Jackson for drain commissioner of Fleabite, Ark., I would send a contribution to “Whacko Jacko For Pipe Cleaner.”

        I admit you are still popular in the city of Cincinnati. But so is Jerry Springer, who was the mayor here long before he became the model for your presidency.

        In the rest of the region, though, your credibility is, well, “impeachable.” And that means you would be as “divisive” as those mean special prosecutors.

        There are other reasons it would be felony stupid to invite you to feel our pain:

        • We've seen what happened to the historic peace “settlement” you worked out for the Mideast, and we're not ready for suicide bombers.

        • Bosnia also seems to be a poor fit. Cincinnati refuses to turn things over to its own elected leaders, much less NATO. And a permanent occupation of military “peacekeepers” in tanks would be pretty hard on our streets, which are already potholed like bombed-out Yugoslavia.

Look out, Cheviot

        • Your method of dealing with terrorists may have been popular in the White House, but blowing up Cheviot with Cruise missiles to solve problems in Over-the-Rhine is not an option here, no matter how it raises your approval ratings and distracts us from the boycott.

        • Even if the local boycott leaders are appeased by the gift of a nuclear reactor, they probably would use it for weapons production, like North Korea did.

        • We've seen Black Hawk Down. Good movie, lousy leadership. Sure, things might have turned out differently if you had access to a few Daisy Cutters. But believe me, a C-130 Gunship will not improve police-community relations.

        • It seems unlikely that someone who had so much trouble with the definition of “is” could evaluate dozens of demands that even the boycott leaders do not really understand.

        Thanks for your concern, Mr. EX-President.

        Cincinnati will survive being snubbed by Bill Cosby and Whoopi Goldberg. But I'm not sure we can recover from visits by O.J., Al Sharpton and Bill Clinton.

        What worries us is not the people who boycott — it's the ego-trippers who make things worse by using us to feed their pathetic cravings for media attention.

        And that's no lie.

        E-mail pbronson@enquirer.com or call 768-8301.
       

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